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This week, I finally thought that was I starting to understand what it means to examine evolution as a story. It was epiphanic. It really hadn't clicked for me until we began to discuss, in our small group, the possibility or impossibility of suspension of disbelief.

I think the thing that was keeping me from being able to access Darwin as a storyteller was the fact that I found him incapable of allowing me to suspend my disbelief. His addressing of the reader, his insistence that we have to trust and believe him forced me to think about the possibility that I might NOT believe him, and to consider whether or not the work was fact, fiction, or conjecture. That consideration in itself prevented me from suspending my disbelief, since I had already classed the work, by that point, as something that HAD to be believed or discounted. I'm having some trouble articulating this concept, and I'm not sure if it's making any sense to you. Perhaps I'll try to edit this post later, if I think of a better way of getting my point across.

I'm hoping that having had this epiphany will allow me to read the second assignment (this week's chapters six through eight) through a different lense. Otherwise...well, back to the drawing board, I suppose.